CRJHL reschedules games due to COVID-19

Here we go again.

Due to concerns for the safety and health of participants caused by the newest COVID-19 variant (Omicron) and the rapid spread recently, the Capital Region Junior Hockey League decided to reschedule some games.

The Selkirk Fishermen’s home game, scheduled for last Sunday, with the North Winnipeg Satelites was postponed. It will be played on a yet-to-be-determined date.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Fishermen head coach Chris Poponick on Monday afternoon. “We were fine, we had enough players. We would have had five miss, myself included, but we had enough players and call-ups and North Winnipeg just didn’t have enough so we’ll plan for a little later date.”

Arborg’s home game last Sunday against St. Malo has been rescheduled to Jan. 22 (7:30 pm).

North Winnipeg’s home game against Arborg this past Tuesday has been rescheduled to be played Feb. 1 (8 p.m.) at Billy Mosienko Arena.

Meanwhile, the Fishermen’s home game that was scheduled for Jan. 22 versus St. Malo is now moved to Jan. 18 at 7:30 p.m. due to the Viterra Championship being held in Selkirk.

For the same reason, Selkirk’s home game scheduled for Jan. 30 against Lundar will be played on Feb. 22. 

It was not known at press time if Selkirk’s home game with Arborg this Friday (7:30 p.m.) would be played.

The Fishermen head into the new year in first place with 45 points, 13 ahead of Arborg.

Selkirk suffered a pair of rare losses in December.

“We had a good hiccup in the beginning of December where we lost those two games to St. Malo and Arborg which, in my opinion, helps us a lot with our development,” Poponick said. “The boys need to learn to lose sometimes and how they respond back. And we did respond back pretty good. We got through the holiday season and hopefully we put the pedal down and take it to the end. January is a tough month to begin with and it’s tough to keep the excitement going about playing. It’s nice that we have had these couple of weeks off here to get the guys a bit rejuvenated to come back to the rink. 

“But the guys are chomping to get back together. We’ll keep going forward and we’ll see if we can continue the win streaks.”